Perdue hooks fishing tournament on Lanier

FLOWERY BRANCH - Gov. Sonny Perdue announced Tuesday that he had landed a professional tournament - the first nibble he's gotten on the new Go Fish Georgia initiative.

And officials from the Professional Anglers Association predicted their annual fall championship at Lake Lanier soon would rival another premier sporting event already held each year in Georgia.

"We want to promote a weekend like The Masters in Augusta that people put on their calendar every year," said Gene Ellison, executive director of the PAA. "... We want this to be as important as The Masters is to golf."

Ellison predicted that a $1 million prize purse and a challenging fish to catch - the spotted bass - would lure 160 pros to wedge another event into their busy tournament calendar. He figures they, in turn, could draw as many as 50,000 fans, making it the largest crowd at any fishing tournament.

Perdue said that considering Georgia is the home to the heftiest largemouth bass ever caught - a 22-pound, 4-ounce rod-bender caught in 1932 - he figured the state should be a more significant player in hosting major fishing tournaments beyond the handful already held around the state.

"I was literally ashamed that we had let our neighboring states get ahead of us," he said.

Reeling in the PAA is only part of what Perdue envisions. Tournament-sized eight-lane boat ramps, docks and the restrooms to accommodate the sportsmen and their fans are planned for lakes across the state. Go Fish Georgia also will include a visitors center and hatchery at a location that hasn't yet been decided.

The first two ramps will be built on Lake Hartwell, which alternates with Lake Lanier as the country's most visited manmade lake. Other ramps will be constructed as local communities agree to provide maintenance, said officials with the state Department of Natural Resources.

The PAA chose Lake Lanier, considered the premier location for catching Kentucky spotted bass, because of the fish's reputation for putting up a good fight and because the lake is close to the 5 million people living in metro Atlanta.